Seconds can make the difference between life and death when responding to an injury accident. As such, emergency medical care professionals utilize a ‘chain of survival’ model to ensure no time is wasted from the moment the call comes in until the victim is properly tended to. This model describes a series of actions that, when put into motion, greatly affect the survival likelihood of trauma victims such as those in a severe automobile accident.
The initial call to 911 is typically the first link in the critical chain of survival. This call triggers emergency services to respond to the accident, and is what emergency services use as the starting point when calculating their ever-important “response-time”. A rapid emergency response is critical, but this alone cannot guarantee an acceptable elapsed time from vehicle impact to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) arrival. If the initial call to 911, or the time required gathering necessary information takes too long, a quick EMS response will likely be for naught. EMS can do nothing to reduce the time between impact and the first step in their chain, the 911 call, but reducing this time is critical for survival.
According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHSTA) Traffic Safety Facts (2008 data), more than 10 million police-reported car accidents occurred in the US in 2008. According to the NHSTA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), these crashes kill nearly 40,000 people annually and result in over 3 million injuries, 2 million of which are permanent. Many of these deaths and permanent injuries could have been prevented if help would have arrived more quickly. Too many precious minutes are lost because calls for help are delayed, or because emergency responders cannot quickly locate the accident.
Existing systems have demonstrated how an Automated Emergency Event Notification (AEEN) system can effectively and expeditiously notify EMS personnel of an accident. These systems incorporate automatic crash notification capabilities to detect a crash and notify their respective telematics service provider (TSP) call center. They report their vehicle's GPS location and other critical telemetry data to the call center operator. The operator then uses this information to contact the 911 Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) nearest to the accident location to request help. These systems also enable three-way voice communications between the vehicle occupants, the service center operator, and the 911 Public Safety Answering Point. Even if the occupants are unable to communicate, the location information is used to dispatch the closest emergency response services to the vehicle.
While these services are beneficial, they have several drawbacks: 1) they are only available on certain vehicle makes and models; 2) they require expensive service contracts; and 3) oftentimes they add additional delays due to their reliance on their own third-party call center. These third-party call centers, which include those of the OnStar, ATX, and Hughes TSP's, have introduced significant procedural problems for the operators at the 911 PSAP centers that are responsible for the EMS dispatch. The TSP calls come into the PSAP on non-priority administrative phone lines which may be in use for routine administrative purposes. Furthermore, the remote TSP call center must determine the appropriate local PSAP to call based on the client vehicle's GPS location and a possibly out-of-date location-indexed PSAP administrative phone number directory and, as a result, the wrong PSAP may be called. Finally, once the appropriate TSP to PSAP call is achieved, the PSAP operator is required to obtain the critical crash/emergency location from a verbal transmission of the multi-digit GPS coordinate data. This round about and error prone AEEN-to-TSP-to-PSAP call procedure is in sharp contrast to a real 911 call to the PSAP wherein the critical call-back number and GPS location automatically and immediately appear on the 911 operator's display at the PSAP that is nearest to the 911 caller.
Until recently, these types of services were the only means to implement an automatic emergency event notification system. However, this is no longer the case. With the recent deployment of modernized E911 capabilities across all mobile networks within the US, third party TSP services must no longer be a mandatory element of automatic emergency event notification systems. As part of its efforts to improve public safety, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted rules, as set forth in 47 C.F.R. §20.18, to improve the reliability of wireless 911 services and the accuracy of the location information transmitted with a wireless 911 call. These rules, which are already in effect, require wireless service providers to: 1) transmit all 911 calls to the nearest PSAP, regardless of whether the caller subscribes to the provider's service and 2) provide the latitude and longitude of the 911-originating cellphone. These coordinates must be accurate to within 50 to 300 meters depending on the type of technology used.
Like the US, many other countries utilize a single emergency telephone number, like 911, which is usually known as either the ‘universal emergency telephone number’ or the ‘emergency services number’. While this number may vary from country to country, it is usually a three-digit number, for example, ‘112’ throughout the European Union. Current GSM or 3G wireless devices are preprogrammed with a list of emergency telephone numbers and will automatically place an appropriate emergency call based on the detected local network. For example, a GSM cellphone user in France would automatically be connected to the correct ‘112’ emergency operator, even if they actually dialed ‘911’ instead. As in the US, many other countries require network operators to support emergency calls regardless of a wireless device's subscription status. They are also often required to provide wireless device location data. Although emergency services numbers and the terms and phraseology used to describe emergency call infrastructure and technology may differ from country to country, a wireless device user's experience with these services is similar across most countries. As such, for convenience and readability, the language used herein will be based upon US emergency services systems, but should be understood to encompass all similar systems worldwide.
Although vehicle manufacturers are beginning to recognize that E911 enables their AEEN systems to directly dial 911, their systems do not integrate an inactive cellphone to leverage the mobile operators' requirements to support such a device. Additionally, their AEEN systems are natively integrated into their vehicles' electronics systems in such a way that they are only available on a limited number of new models from select manufacturers. Furthermore, some of these AEEN systems, for example the Ford SYNC AEEN, depend upon a wirelessly tethered user-provided cellphone with service contract to place the 911 call. This is not a dependable solution as the user's cellphone may not be present, have an adequately charged battery, may be damaged or ejected in a crash, or may otherwise not be properly connected with the AEEN system. Additionally, by relying on a user provided cell phone, these AEEN systems do not benefit from the advantage of utilizing maximum power RF transmitters or ideal cellular technologies.
Now that third-party services are no longer required for wireless 911 location services, what is needed is a small, crash-resistant, self-contained, AEEN device with which ordinary transport owners may inexpensively upgrade their transport with the latest AEEN safety technology. These transports include cars, trucks, buses, trains, motorcycles, boats, aircraft, etc. For convenience and readability, all transport entities will be referred to as ‘vehicles” herein. Such an AEEN device would advantageously utilize a standard connector to: 1) allow easy installation into nearly any vehicle and 2) allow the device to be removed for portability between vehicles. The desired AEEN device must intelligently detect an emergency event, automatically dial 911, enable 2-way voice communications between the 911 operator and vehicle occupants, and directly provide the 911 operator with important information pertaining to the event by transmitting the data of interest for automatic entry into the operator's computer system. Such a device should preferably not require an active wireless service, an external cellphone, or the intervention of any third-party call center service.